Today's show is a Valentine's Card from Sonoma County, California. Journalist and author Jonah Raskin is Thorne Dreyer's guest in a Valentine's Day special of sorts. Jonah reads some Valentine's Day poems and he'll also discuss the British TV series, Vera, a police procedural that reveals the "Other England." Vera, Jonah says, has a certain "Shakespearian veracity." And he'll talk about homelessness in Sonoma County's wealthy Wine Country and report on the latest on the marijuana business.

Cultural Critic, media scholar, journalist, author, and activist Jonah Raskin's latest "California noir" novel is Dark Day, Dark Night. His earlier novel featuring private eye Tioga Vignetta was Dark Land, Dark Mirror. Jonah is an activist and educator and the author of more than a dozen books (and poetry chap books), including biographies of Allen Ginsberg and Abbie Hoffman. His writing appears on a number of sites including High Times, CounterPunch, and The Rag Blog. This is Jonah Raskin's seventh visit to Rag Radio.

Rag Radio is produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, an all-volunteer, cooperatively-run, solar powered community radio station in Austin, Texas, in association with The Rag Blog and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit. It is streamed live on the Internet at KOOP.org and Radio Free America. The host and producer of Rag Radio, Thorne Dreyer, is a prominent Austin-based activist and writer who was a pioneer of the ’60s underground press movement. The show’s engineer and co-producer is Tracey Schulz and the staff photographer is Roger Baker; Suzy Shelor is Rag Radio associate; Alice Embree is guest host; Glenn Smith and Roy Casagranda are our political analysts, and Evan Hearn is the Rag Radio apprentice. The syndicated show is broadcast (and streamed) live Fridays, 2-3 p.m. Central) on KOOP, and is later rebroadcast and streamed on WFTE-FM in Mt. Cobb and Scranton, PA., on Houston Pacifica's KPFT HD-3 90.1, by KKRN, 88.5-FM in Round Mountain,  CA, and at WALHRadio.com in Wilmington, OH -- and as a featured podcast at Veterans Today. Learn more about Rag Radio here.